Saturday, February 16, 2013

A Private Sector, Space Intruder Detector

Asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries (DSI) didn't wait for the dust to settle after the unexpected impact of an asteroid over the Urals on Friday before issuing a press release reminding everyone that tracking near Earth objects is one of the things the firm is focused on.

Today’s impact in Russia and the near
miss by asteroid 2012 DA14 should shock the world into creating a sentry
line of spacecraft circling the Earth to intercept and evaluate
incoming threats, Deep Space Industries proposed.

“The hundreds of people injured in northern Russia show it’s time to
take action and no longer be passive about these threats,” said Rick
Tumlinson, chairman of Deep Space Industries.

Deep Space Industries proposes establishing several sentry lines
encircling Earth with small spacecraft able to dart after intruders to
get close-in photos and data as they pass. Over time additional
spacecraft able to grab samples for analysis on Earth would join the
sentry lines.

...
As outlined in the February 16th, 2013 CBS News article "After dramatic meteor strike, Russians pick up pieces,"
over 1,200 people were injured by the shock wave and hundreds of
building damaged from the explosion (estimated to be as strong as 20
Hiroshima atomic bombs), which occurred when a meteorite vaporized over the Russian city of
Chelyabinsk around sunrise on Friday.

The NASA Asteroid and Comet Watch website took pains to point out that the object which landed in Chelybinsk was totally unrelated to another asteroid which NASA did track.

However, NASA was tracking the close flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 which was estimated as being approximately the same size (50 meters) but much heavier (190,000 metric tons) according to the 2012 DA14 Goldstone Radar Observations Planning document from NASA Goldstone. This order of magnitude difference in mass between two objects of approximately the same dimensions suggests that there were major differences in structure and/or composition between the two objects. According to the DSI press release:

Not all asteroids are the same, and to be ready to deflect one that’s on
a dangerous trajectory the world needs to know more about their
structure and composition. Many may be solid but all photos so far have
shown gravel and rock piles. A defense plan assuming the wrong type
could make matters worse.

2 comments:

Rhetoric vs money ... This is so because DSI and other private companies are service organizations. They will build, service, consult, whatever, as long as someone else pays for it. They have ideas and they will do the work, just pay them.

Mr Musk of SpaceX, after having invested some of his fortune, needed funding, guidance, and help from NASA to get Falcon-9 and Dragon ready for ISS. And of course, SpaceX will get paid for each launch under its Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. From this link, SpaceX is just another government contractor (for the moment) :

http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2012/07/the-tale-of-falcon-1/

Another perspective on fantasy thinking :

http://gwynnedyer.com/2010/space-america-concedes-the-lead/

There is nothing wrong with any of this. The issue is who is going to pay for all these exciting endeavours.

Oh, wait, maybe the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs should fund this Sentry Line of Inspection/Defense, yah.